I’m really happy to have received good news of you and to learn that you have set to work again.1

As I told you in my hasty card,2 I’ve settled in Cassis, a pretty little port an hour from Marseille. Some white, some blue, some orange harmonically dispersed in pretty undulations. All around mountains with
1v:2 rhythmic curves.

I’m giving myself a great deal of trouble. Should I manage to render a tenth of what I see, I’d be most content.

Our Veronese Green and our cobalt blue – not that of that good fellow Tanguy – are without doubt shit beside these Mediterranean waves.

I’m much hindered by the weather: rain or mistral for several days. I’m taking advantage of this setback to do the plates of a work that was ordered from me
1v:3 in collaboration with Mr C. Henry (perhaps you’ve read certain of my collaborator’s articles in the Revue Indépendante) by the Librairie de l’Art.3

It’s a book on the aesthetics of shapes, whose measurements and angles can be studied by means of an instrument – C. Henry’s aesthetic protractor. One then sees if the shape is harmonious or not.

This will have a great social bearing, above all from the point of view of industrial art. We’re teaching the art of seeing correctly and beautifully to apprentice workmen etc. whose aesthetic education has only been conducted up to now
1r:4 by means of empirical formulae and dishonest or silly advice. I’ll send you one of these brochures when they’ve seen the light of day.

The letter is headed: ‘Cassis – Vendredi’. On Wednesday, 10 April Signac’s previous postcard had arrived in Arles (it had taken two days to get there (see letter 755)). Assuming that Van Gogh replied immediately on the 10th (letter 756), and that Signac, in turn, also wrote the present letter at once, then the Friday in question must have been Friday, 12 April 1889. This is also in keeping with Signac’s complaint that it had been raining for a couple of days (ll. 25-26) – between 5 and 11 April there had in fact been some precipitation (Météo-France). Moreover, Friday, 19 April can certainly be ruled out: in letter 758, written between about Sunday, 14 and about Wednesday, 17 April, Vincent tells of Signac’s invitation to come to Cassis, which means that he had already received the present letter.